12th
August 2007
Every
year the authorities in Brussels, the capital of Belgium
and of the European Union (EU), receive between 500 and
600 applications for permission to demonstrate or hold
protest marches. With very few exceptions permission is
always granted. In the past five years
only six applications were
turned down
– an average of one a year. Among these was one for a
demonstration by the
DHKP/C,
a Kurdish terrorist organization. Last week another
request was turned down. Freddy Thielemans, the Mayor of
Brussels, prohibited a demonstration against the
Islamization of Europe, planned to be held next
September 11 in front of the European Parliament
buildings. Mayor Thielemans is worried that the
demonstration will upset the large immigrant population
of Brussels. Over half the inhabitants of the Brussels
region are of foreign origin, many of them from Morocco.
According to the mayor there is a real danger of
violence between demonstrators and Muslims living in the
neighbourhood. The latter might not tolerate native
Europeans protesting against their continent becoming
Eurabia.
Thielemans is a member of the Parti Socialiste
(PS), a Belgian party which
caters for the Muslim
population.
The PS is the largest party in Brussels, holding 17 of
the
47 seats in the city
council.
10 of the 17 PS-councillors are Muslims. The PS governs
Brussels in a coalition with the Christian-Democrats,
who have 11 councillors, of whom 2 are Muslims and 3 are
immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. Only 13 of the 28
councillors in the governing coalition of the city are
native Belgians. Thielemans is the most conspicuous of
these. He is an atheist who is fond of Muslims, not
because he respects religious people, but because he
hates Christians. On 2 April 2005 the Brussels mayor was
attending an official cocktail party with the mayor of
Angoulême (France), when the news of the death of Pope
John Paul II reached him. On hearing the news he ordered
“Champagne for everyone!” His French colleague
walked out in disgust.
Upsetting Catholics has never particularly worried the
Socialist mayor of Brussels, for instance when he
refused to ban a play (by a Moroccan-born author) which
was advertised around the country on posters portraying
the
Virgin Mary with bare
breasts.
In Mr. Thielemans’s absence his deputy, Algerian-born
Faouzia Hariche,
is Brussels’ acting mayor – which is an improvement.
Hariche, too, obviously, is Muslim-friendly, but she has
never publicly toasted the death of the Pope.
Last Spring, the Danish group
Stop Islamiseringen af
Danmark
(SIAD), the British group
Stop the Islamisation of
Europe
(SIOE) and the German group
Pax Europa,
whose logo includes the flag of the
multiculturalist EU,
decided to organize a protest march against the
introduction of Sharia laws in Europe. The organizers
want the march to take place on 9/11 in the streets of
Brussels and to end in front of the EU Parliament.
There, the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, will be
commemorated with one minute of silence.
The initiative was announced on various blogs, but there
did not seem to be a contact in Belgium who was
responsible for its organization. It seemed as if the
march was being organized exclusively in cyberspace,
with no preparations being made in Brussels itself. The
organizers announced on their blogs that 20,000
demonstrators from all over Europe had announced their
intention to come to Brussels. In mid-July we visited
the European Parliament buildings and its vicinity with
an international delegation from the
Center for Vigilant Freedom.
CVF is sympathetic towards the demonstration, but wanted
more information. We wondered how the Luxemburg Plaza in
front of the parliament buildings, where construction
work is still being carried out, could fit the masses
which were announced to show up. European protest
demonstrations usually end near the Berlaymont building,
the European Commission’s headquarters, and the adjacent
Cinquantenaire Park.
Up until last week the Belgian press had made no mention
of the march. Last Thursday, however, Mayor Thielemans
banned the demonstration. A local joke has it that the
mayor cannot allow a demonstration on his 63rd birthday
(Thielemans was
born on Sept. 11,
1944) because he fears that if the pope dies on his
birthday it will cost him a fortune to offer “champagne
for everyone.” That would be no big deal in a city
where the many Muslims do not drink alcohol, but with
20,000 non-Islamic visitors in town the mayor might
bankrupt himself on champagne.
Thielemans’ decision prompted
Filip Dewinter,
one of the leaders of the
Vlaams Belang,
Belgium’s major (and Europe’s most successful)
“Islamophobic” and Eurosceptic party, to announce his
intention to attend the demonstration. Dewinter, who (I
am not making this up) is also
celebrating his birthday on
Sept. 11,
is inviting everyone to come to the Luxemburg Plaza with
him. “I will have my birthday party on the Luxemburg
Plaza in front of the European Parliament. And no-one
will be able to prevent me from being there and calling
out slogans. Everyone is welcome.”
The Danish-British-German organizers can lodge an appeal
against the mayor’s prohibition with the Belgian Council
of State. The CoS may rule that the demonstration must
be allowed to take place. Meanwhile an
online petition,
which everyone is invited to sign, asks the mayor to
reconsider his decision. Thielemans’ ban has turned the
anti-Sharia demonstration into a huge publicity stunt,
even if only a few people show up. The press will be
there and the world will be watching – if not a mass
demonstration, Filip Dewinter celebrating his 45th
birthday with a bottle of champagne. Meanwhile,
Thielemans’ decision has showed the world that Brussels,
a city which does not allow peaceful Europeans to
demonstrate and make their wishes known to the European
authorities in town, is unworthy of being Europe’s
capital.
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